Nucleated dewetting of thin polymer films

A combination of optical microscopy and neutron reflectometry is utilized to investigate the dewetting caused by a nucleation and growth process. The model system is polystyrene (PS) on top of Si (100) with its native oxide layer. Nucleation is forced by the introduction of additional grains during the sample preparation. From neutron scattering the density profile as an averaged piece of information is gained. Optical microscopy enables the in-situ determination of lateral local structures. The growth of the hole area of individual holes is described within the Kolmogorov model. The growth exponent as a function of annealing time of all holes investigated shows a linear increase. (orig.)